WATERVILLE — Two women who allegedly held knives to a man’s throat while they searched his apartment for drugs and money are in jail and charged with robbery, as part of a tangled story that involves another man who at last check was in critical condition at a Portland hospital.

The sequence of events started at 12:32 a.m. Saturday when police and emergency crews responded to a report of an unresponsive man at Appleton Apartments at 13 Hathaway St. The man was reportedly a visitor to an apartment there.

Deputy Chief Charles Rumsey, of the Waterville police, said Thursday that the man was taken to the Thayer Center for Health and later flown by LifeFlight helicopter to Maine Medical Center in Portland.

On Tuesday, Detective Duane Cloutier interviewed another man who lives at the apartment. The man told Cloutier that at 7:30 a.m. Saturday, the day after the man was taken away, two women who had been at the apartment during the medical incident returned and robbed him.

The women, Alison Thomas, 36, of, 7 Hazelwood Ave., Apartment 3, and Laurie Philbrick, 41, of 24 Eastern Ave., grabbed knives from a butcher’s block in the apartment and held them to his throat, demanding he give them drugs and money that they believed were in the apartment, according to Rumsey.

“He denied having possession of any drugs or money,” Rumsey said. “One of the women apparently kept him at knife point for some time while the other searched the apartment.” He said when they could not find any drugs or money, they stole bags of clothing belonging to the man who had suffered the medical emergency.

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Detectives investigated the case Tuesday and Wednesday and tried to find the women. On Wednesday, they found Philbrick at her home on Eastern Avenue and arrested her on charges of one count of class A felony robbery and one count of class C felony criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon, Rumsey said. Her bail was set at $6,000 cash and she was taken to the Kennebec County jail in Augusta. She is scheduled to appear April 25 in Kennebec County Superior Court.

Detectives still were looking for Thomas when at 12:55 a.m. Thursday patrol officers went to 7 King St. in the city’s South End in response to a report of someone in the basement of a home. Police met with the tenant, who reported hearing someone screaming and yelling in the basement, Rumsey said.

“Our officers went around to the back of the house to the bulkhead door, went down it and opened the door that leads into the basement,” he said.

A woman later identified as Thomas, who Rumsey said was extremely intoxicated, ran out of the basement with dried blood on her face and smelling of intoxicants, Rumsey said.

She told police she had been dragged into the basement and chained to a wall, but police checked the basement and determined that did not happen, Rumsey said.

Meanwhile, she refused to identify herself, but Sgt. Brian Gardiner recognized her, so they arrested her and charged her with robbery and criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon. She was taken to a hospital and medically cleared before being taken to the jail in Augusta, where bail was set at $6,000 cash. Her court date was set for April 25 in Kennebec County Superior Court.

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Rumsey said she had a broken pinky finger, scrapes on her nose and a mouth injury that police believe occurred because she fell down before they arrived.

Police are not naming the man who rents the apartment or the man who was found unconscious, as they have not been charged with a crime, Rumsey said.

“The last we knew, he was in critical condition,” Rumsey said of the man hospitalized in Portland. “We have not been able to substantiate that his medical condition was due to a drug overdose.”

He said the man is in his early 40s and lives in the Waterville area. Rumsey said police think drugs and money were in the Hathaway Street apartment before emergency officials went to the apartment Saturday to deal with the unresponsive man.

“Based on our investigation, we suspect that earlier in the night, there had been a large quantity of drugs at the residence, so these two women went there in an attempt, we believe, to steal those drugs and money we think may have been there as a result of illegal drug dealing,” he said.

He said police believe the drug was heroin.

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The man who rents the apartment was not injured in the robbery — which police describe as use of force in the commission of a theft — but feared for his life, according to Rumsey.

Amy Calder — 861-9247

acalder@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @AmyCalder17


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